Other Bodies is an electroacoustic concert piece that combines elements of music composition, data sonification, and multimedia journalism.
It derives its form from the interplay of 5 sonified data sets concerning Anti-Asian hate speech online, and Anti-Asian violence in the real world during the Covid-19 pandemic. These data sets are mapped to different sound sources, along a time scale where one second of the performance corresponds to one day of the period between November 3rd 2019 and February 14th 2021. Please note that, in the projection slide used at Scripps College, the end date is incorrectly labeled with the year 2020.
Other bodies was created by Micah Huang and performed by Micah Huang (Electronics, Cues) and Yihan Chen (Pipa). A score document detailing the creative process behind Other Bodies can be found below.
The Chinese Pipa in Other Bodies plays the Qing-era traditional piece "Ambush form Ten Sides," adapted by Liu Dehai and arranged by Yihan Chen in consultation with Micah Huang.
Other Bodies is the first of 3 pieces commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts for the performance program "American Dreams/Asian Nightmares," which premiered on October 27th 2022, at the USC Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, CA.
NEA Composer of Record: Micah Huang
Further details, Citations and Max MSP patch can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folder...
Other Bodies
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to watch the full video (Youtube)
TRIGGER WARNING: This is a piece of arts-activism, which deals with themes of racism and violence.
It contains explicit references to racist incidents, and stylized audio renditions of Anti-Asian language.
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Other Bodies Score
This document contains a detailed description of the process by which Other Bodies was created, including data sourcing, scaling and mapping, generative logic, audio processing of samples and real-time inputs, and western-style music notation illustrating overall pitch scheme. Please click on the displayed page to scroll through the full score.
The latter half of the score document contains additional information about the choice of “Ambush from All Sides” as a sound element, as well as a bibliography of data sources.
The Max/MSP folder containing the Other bodies patcher along with associated audio and data files is available for download via the button at top right, which leads to an open google drive link.
Click the page below to view full document (8 pages)Click the image above to view a full-size graphic of the Max/MSP patcher for Other Bodies
Full Version of the excerpt above. Run time @ 10min